I’m a sinner still being saved, so one chorus I love is, ‘It’s your blood that cleanses me’. When I sing that I am reassured that I have ‘redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins’ (Ephesians 1:7).

But being forgiven is not enough. I need to be deeply changed on the inside if I am ever to become fully accepted and unashamed in his presence. And that is where being a Bible believer comes in. You see, I would like to add a second verse to ‘It’s your blood that cleanses me’. One in which we could sing,  ‘It’s your WORD that changes me’.

For that’s the truth. Only through believing and trusting his WORD can I become the person God intends me to be. I need to be daily ‘washed’ by the truth of scripture and then some. As the Apostle Paul declares in (Ephesians 5:26)…

…Christ gave Himself for it [i.e. the church] that He might sanctify and cleanse it by the WASHING of the water by the WORD. That He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish’.

Don’t you long to be found in Christ, a holy member of his holy church in glory? I do. It is why I am a Bible believer. And the only way to be sure you get there is through the ‘washing of the word’. But this requires a total submission on my part to what the Bible says. When we take a warm bath we don’t argue or try to change the water. We just sink gratefully into it. And that’s exactly how we should approach scripture – just sink into it until it absorbs us.

It’s a tragedy that many are caught up in questioning the plain truth in their bibles. Does scripture  really mean what it says? they ask. Don’t the experts say that if analysed many scriptural statements really say something else? And if I’ve got to question the written word every time I read it, where will I start and how will I ever finish?

For the record I plead guilty to being a Bible literalist. That is, I take as absolute truth what God has said and caused to be written. Jesus Himself appealed to what scripture says when tempted by Satan and later when opposed by the Pharisees and Sadducees. Scripture, He said, ‘cannot be broken’ (John 10:35). But it can be misinterpreted, set aside, or downright ignored.

For example, many Christians find themselves in the ludicrous position of begging God to do something his WORD says He’s already done. Take the matter of our being forgiven and accepted by God. Many believers still struggle with sin, repeatedly asking the Lord to forgive and cleanse them.

But God says He’s already forgiven us all trespasses (Colossians 2:13). And ‘if we walk in the light as He is in the light, … the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin’’ (1 John 1:7).

What’s more He has already ‘made us ACCEPTED in the beloved (i.e. Christ)’. Yet, sadly, much preaching today seeks to persuade believers to do better, believe more, change their ways, improve themselves. All this in the hope that God will then move miraculously on their behalf. This, of course, ignores the blindingly obvious scriptures which say God has already done so. For example:

But God who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved) And hath raised us up together and made us sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come He might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through FAITH and that not of yourselves; it is the GIFT of God, not of works, lest any man should boast (Ephesians 2:5-9).

Not only that, but from the moment we trust Christ as our Saviour and Lord we are ‘his workmanship, CREATED in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them’ (Ephesians 2:10). Isn’t it better to be made new by God in a whole new creation than to struggle to make ourselves better by our futile self-efforts?

Now, a distinction needs to be made between true science, which seeks to understand the world within the framework of God's revelation, and "false science," which elevates human reasoning above divine truth.

Romans 1:21-22 warns of the consequences of such an approach:

For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.

Frankly, I’m appalled at the number of so-called Christians I meet who say they are following Jesus but baulk at believing God created heaven and earth in six, literal 24-hour days and also reject the Gensis account of Noah’s flood on the basis that the boffins say it was only a local inundation.

But what would scientists know about biblical reality? Ask them what scientific laws and chemical processes were involved in Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand and you will be met with silence. Ask the medics how a man dead for four days who is stinking and decomposing can walk out of his tomb and they too have no answer.

But the Bible believer has. It is that if God said it and caused it to be written down in a book He has preserved despite repeated attempts down the ages  to suppress and destroy it, then whatever He said is the truth.

John Dudley Aldworth

Email: johndaldworth42@gmail.com

Website: https://www.dayofchristmnistries.com›